ابو الهول يطير

In this travel memoir, the Egyptian writer Mahmoud Taymour recounts a 1955 journey he made with his ailing wife from Egypt to the United States, seeking medical treatment for her, by way of Italy, France, and Britain.

He compares the vast airliner that carries them across the world to Abu al-Hawl, the Sphinx, taking to the air — the image that gives the book its title.

Blending narration, description, and dialogue in the tradition of Arabic travel literature, Taymour records his impressions of each place he passes through, while the account is shadowed throughout by his enduring grief over the earlier death of his son, Suleiman.